Munich Red Ale

I was initially going to use the WY1332 I saved from my previous bitter recipe, but I am as yet uncertain as to whether or not I like it enough to use in another beer. The bitter is a bit young which may explain why I am less than thrilled with it at present, so I will consider using it further down the line if the beer improves. As it stands, the beer is indistinct, with low malt flavours, uninspiring hop flavours, thin and a tad tart. I don't think it is infected.

So I decided to use the foolproof US05, possibly the most boring ale yeast known to man but it has a very wide temperature range and helps hops sing.

There recipe (I also added 250g light DME and 35g RB)

Mash ph would have been about 5.4

Water:
Ca 109
Mg 13
Na 4
Cl 150
S04 105
Alkalinity 20

Chloride forward as you can see, I want a strong malty body in this one, with an assertive hop presence.

Some things to note - my mash efficiency was down, although the sparge was fine.  I was less than impressed with the content of the Munich, there was a fair amount of straw/stalk form the barely would you believe, I've never seen that in British malt all. However it did taste promising.  Also the 5% cara red and 35g of Roast Barley I added only made the wort look brown rather than red. We shall see come drinking time.  I plan to bottle this in ten days

Brown Ale and Vienna Ale tasting

A small note on two of the previous beers mentioned on the blog

Brown Ale

Drinking well, decent hoppy flavours but a bit less malty flavour than I would like in a strong-ish beer.  Perhaps the hops are too much and the malt will come forward later? I don't have many bottles left . Clarity is great with a reasonable amount of calcium and Notty yeast

Vienna Pale

There is a metallic edge in the one I am drinking. Again, light in malt flavours and rather hoppy, to be expected with the amount I put in. It's a good beer but really could have done with the dry hop to balance things out a bit, the aroma is lackluster.


Now obviously "malty" and "hoppy" doesn't help any random people reading this, but it helps me and I tend to lose notes I write :)

Brown Ale of sorts

A Brown Bitter/Mild?


Decided to make a small beer to build up WY1332 for future brews. I think this will be an easy drinking brown bitter. Never used Phoenix hops before.  Starter was 1.5L of transatlantic brown ale wort. The starter had that slightly tart taste that Whitbread B, a lactic acid producer, has.  I've seen a few posts on JBK that say that Gales used a Whitbread B strain fermented at 23.5C for a day then 21C.  WY1332 is supposedly from Hales in the US, who got their yeast from Gales. I'm not the biggest fan of that lactic tang and have no idea if it will work in this beer. We shall see

Mild Ale Malt

Type: All Grain
Batch Size: 21.00 l
Boil Size: 25.29 l
Boil Time: 60 min
End of Boil Vol: 23.40 l
Final Bottling Vol: 19.50 l
Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage

Date: 25 Jan 2016
Brewer: Moi
Asst Brewer:
Equipment: My 30l boiler
Efficiency: 75.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 80.4 %
Taste Rating: 30.0

Taste Notes:

Ingredients

Amt	Name	Type	#	%/IBU
3000.00 g	Mild Malt (7.9 EBC)	Grain	1	80.0 %
250.00 g	Crystal Extra Dark - 120L (Crisp) (236.4 EBC)	Grain	2	6.7 %
250.00 g	Oats, Malted (Thomas Fawcett) (3.9 EBC)	Grain	3	6.7 %
150.00 g	Brown Malt (Crisp) (128.1 EBC)	Grain	4	4.0 %
100.00 g	Wheat, Torrified (Thomas Fawcett) (3.9 EBC)	Grain	5	2.7 %
25.00 g	Phoenix [8.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min	Hop	6	25.5 IBUs
25.00 g	Phoenix [8.00 %] - Boil 5.0 min	Hop	7	5.1 IBUs

Gravity, Alcohol Content and Color

Est Original Gravity: 1.041 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.012 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 3.7 %
Bitterness: 30.5 IBUs
Est Color: 22.5 EBC

Measured Original Gravity: 1.044 SG
Measured Final Gravity: 1.010 SG
Actual Alcohol by Vol: 4.4 %
Calories: 408.1 kcal/l

Mash Profile

Mash Name: Single Infusion, Full Body, Batch Sparge
Sparge Water: 15.92 l
Sparge Temperature: 75.6 C
Adjust Temp for Equipment: TRUE

Total Grain Weight: 3750.00 g
Grain Temperature: 17.0 C
Tun Temperature: 22.2 C
Mash PH: 5.20

Mash Steps

Name	Description	Step Temperature	Step Time
Mash In	Add 13.62 l of water at 76.6 C	68.9 C	45 min

Sparge: Batch sparge with 2 steps (3.03l, 12.90l) of 75.6 C water

Mash Notes: Simple single infusion mash for use with most modern well modified grains (about 95% of the time).

First post to test...original, eh?

First post on this blog is regarding a Vienna base malt beer I brewed which is conditioning now in the bottle. First time using Vienna as the main base and I threw in some cara rye to add a bit more complexity. The hops were all Slovenian,  won from Get'erBrewed. Sample tasted great when bottling, no dry hop though.  Filter clogged unfortunately so had to jug out half the wort - next time I'll use a mix of leaf and pellets.

 

The recipe;

 

Vienna IPA

American IPA (21 A)

Type: All Grain
Batch Size: 23.00 l
Boil Size: 27.37 l
Boil Time: 60 min
End of Boil Vol: 25.48 l
Final Bottling Vol: 21.50 l
Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage

Date: 25 Jan 2016
Brewer: moi
Equipment: My 30l boiler
Efficiency: 75.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 79.9 %

Ingredients

Amt	Name	Type	#	%/IBU
5000.00 g	Vienna Malt (Weyermann) (5.9 EBC)	Grain	1	95.2 %
250.00 g	Caramel Rye (Weyermann) (69.0 EBC)	Grain	2	4.8 %
30.00 g	Warrior [13.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min	Hop	3	41.0 IBUs
50.00 g	Styrian Cardinal [9.20 %] - Boil 10.0 min	Hop	4	17.5 IBUs
50.00 g	Styrian Aurora (Super Styrian) [7.50 %] - Boil 5.0 min	Hop	5	7.9 IBUs
50.00 g	Styrian Wolf [13.60 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 0.0 min	Hop	6	0.0 IBUs
1.0 pkg	Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) [50.28 ml]	Yeast	7	-
50.00 g	Styrian Cascade [5.50 %] - Dry Hop 0.0 Days	Hop	8	0.0 IBUs

Gravity, Alcohol Content and Color

Est Original Gravity: 1.054 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.009 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.9 %
Bitterness: 66.3 IBUs
Est Color: 12.3 EBC

Measured Original Gravity: 1.054 SG
Measured Final Gravity: 1.010 SG
Actual Alcohol by Vol: 5.8 %
Calories: 504.1 kcal/l

Mash Profile

Mash Name: Single Infusion, Light Body, Batch Sparge
Sparge Water: 15.83 l
Sparge Temperature: 75.6 C
Mash PH: 5.20

Mash Steps

Name	Description	Step Temperature	Step Time
Mash In	Add 17.30 l of water at 72.8 C	64.4 C	75 min

Sparge: Batch sparge with 16l of 75.6 C water

Mash Notes: Simple single infusion mash